Why cars are taxed on CO2 emission?

opinions4u

thegirlintheattic wrote: »

Because CO2 is a greenhouse gas, if we put more into the atmosphere that nature can cope with with screw up the climate.

Well that's the theory. But they haven't actually proved it. Despite spending £billions researching it

Nature (trees and sinks) cannot cope with the amount of CO2 we are putting into the atmosphere.

Maybe. Maybe not. The case remains unproven.

Nearly_Old

rev_henry wrote: »

But to answer your question its an excuse to tax fun cars than aren't silly little econoboxes in the name of climate change.

Doesn't work if the fun car is pre March 2001

Current retirement fun car is a 99 2.8 litre Z3 - that may be replaced with a 3.2 litre Z3M later this year. Got to have a reason for going to work and paying into pension funds for 40+ years. The tax on the Z3 is slightly less than the tax on our 9 year old Citroen diesel!

Lum

Nearly_Old wrote: »

Doesn't work if the fun car is pre March 2001

Or a non-EU grey import that is over 10 years old. These come in under the old taxation rules too, and mean that you can now get some fun gas guzzling 2002 cars with cheap tax.

I recommend the BP/BL Subaru Legacy STI or the R34 Nissan Skyline GT-R M-Spec Nur as possible starting points.

andygb

Most diesels fall into lower tax brackets (low Co2 emissions), yet chuck out filthy particulates which cause cancers, particularly in young children.
Conclusion:
The government is taxing cars which are clean, and rewarding those that help to keep youth unemployment down, by killing off our young people.

Strider590

thegirlintheattic wrote: »

Because CO2 is a greenhouse gas, if we put more into the atmosphere that nature can cope with with screw up the climate.

Nature (trees and sinks) cannot cope with the amount of CO2 we are putting into the atmosphere.

I hate to burst your bubble, but human's produce only 5% of the greenhouse gases. The rest comes from nature itself......

1998 was the hottest year in the last 50 years.

The whole carbon foot print thing is a load of boll0cks, the most elaborate money making scam ever invented. We're being encouraged to buy more and more stuff in order to be more green (which defeats the point), it's become the socially acceptable reason/excuse to spend money like it's going out of fashion.


In answer to OP, Vehicle Excuse Duty is based on emissions because it's a modern day equivalent of "window tax". Back in the day, the better off you were, the bigger your home was and the more windows you'd have.

Now it's based on how well off you try to make people think you are, the more you can afford a gas guzzling monster truck, the more you pay for the pleasure.

Lum

Strider590 wrote: »

Now it's based on how well off you try to make people think you are, the more you can afford a gas guzzling monster truck...

Or a March 2001 registered 2 litre Mondeo estate.

Strider590

Lum wrote: »

Or a March 2001 registered 2 litre Mondeo estate.

Well, yes that's another layer to the whole thing.... Getting old cars off the road, getting new cars out of the showrooms, boosting the economy!!
The decision to keep the higher rate for pre-2001 vehicles, was made during the automotive industry crysis, just prior to full on recession.

bryanb

dacouch wrote: »

I'll let you into a secret, I breathe out carbon dioxide

Only because you just breathed it in, you don't make it.

Strider590

bryanb wrote: »

Only because you just breathed it in, you don't make it.

Carbon dioxide is a by-product produced within the human body........

movilogo

As per this link - http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

Human generated CO2 is only around 3%. The rest are produced from nature.

So, the CO2 tax is nothing but a government propaganda to raise some arbitrary amount of tax from people.